What’s Getting in The Road of Sydney’s Traffic Issues

The issues with getting to and from work is not just about traffic on Sydney’s roads. I think there is more to this problem then simply better roads. The other day I saw this article on news.com.au regarding the traffic congestion and an app that is going to be the saviour. The thing is, this goes deeper than mere roads or green lights. The real issue that is getting in the road of better travel times to and from work is twofold: many people from different locations all coming to just a few locations, such as the Sydney and Parramatta CDBs. The second issue is a lot of managers and business are stuck in a mindset of decades ago. From this, I think that we need to spread out where we live and work, and business needs to adapt to a growing and changing society.

NOTE: This is also a work in progress, so I intend to refine and rework this over time.

If we spread out where we live and work, we could have businesses and citizens all over the country. Thus, reducing the pain imposed on our CBDs (currently Sydney CBD and Parramatta CDB). We could use incentives to begin the creation of new hubs or metro areas, or support and expand some others that are almost there now. Either way, I still think we need to work more on our regional and provincial areas. There are towns out there just waiting to be given the chance to thrive! Unfortunately, they just don’t have the work available right now. In time, we can — and need to — change that!

As I mentioned, we need to spread out our society, but also, perhaps we should look at restructuring how business operates in this more populated world? Extend business hours (or not — it isn’t necessary) so that some staff start earlier and others later. I would argue that we should also look at decreasing work time for our populous as well; say, for example, roughly half of staff at any business have Monday off, the rest have Friday off. Doing this would increase economic activity and also improve that “work life balance” so many businesses claim to care about. More about this in another post.

What do you think about the two ideas of (1) spreading our population out and (2) changing how we do business (i.e., staggering business start and finish times, and possibly shortening the working week)?